Been playing quite a bit after a few months of only a bit of Dark Souls here and there. I finally fully beat Demon's Souls over the past few weeks, I got a 3DS for Christmas so I've been playing and loving Fire Emblem and Zelda. I got La Mulana on Steam, which is a really great "Metroidvania" style game full of crazy puzzles. I also downloaded the Bravely Default demo on 3DS yesterday and I've been having a blast with it, I can't wait for the full game next month. The 3DS has got me so much more into games again, I'm looking forward to buying and playing Phoenix Wright 5, Pokemon, Kid Icarus, and SMT 4 along with many other titles.

Been playing Fire Emblem myself, which had been sitting on a shelf for like a year. Having fun with it, though I'm taking my time as I'm probably not too far from the ending. Also finished The Swapper, Antichamber and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons recently, all of which I recommend to those interested in their respective genres.

I also got La-Mulana on Steam during the holidays, I'd been holding out on it ever since in came out on Wii but I figured it was time to give it a shot. I'm very early in, ventured relatively deep in on my first try (Mausoleum of Giants), almost got killed but I'm quite proud to say I managed to get back to town without dying. Truth be told I wish the game was on 3DS. I also randomly started playing "I have no mouth and I must scream", an old horror game, and "Stealth Bastard Deluxe", a cute stealth-oriented platformer.

Glad to know you had fun with Bravely Default's demo by the way, I didn't buy it when it came out over here as JRPGs can bore out me quickly nowadays, but I reconsidered and decided to get it last week. It's out of stock at the moment though. On another note I've played through Phoenix Wright 5 and its DLC a while ago and I think you'll enjoy the game, especially the later segments.

Even then, the game's battle system is perfect, it's fast, simple, and relies on the player having fun figuring out good combos of skills. Did you get all the bonuses? I think the only one I'm missing is the completion of the town.

I still haven't beaten the demo actually. I've gotten a few bonuses, but they're pretty worthless so far. Hi-Potion? Yay... I'm really just a few hours in, though. (My party is: Lancer/Knight, Knight/Lancer, Black Mage/White Mage, Ninja/Swordmaster). I've really enjoyed what I have played though. Music is great, graphics are cute and polished, and what really counts is that the battle and job systems are fantastic, once you get the hang of them.

However, the demo doesn't ease you in at all--it throws you face first, armed with a half-dozen job options and little information about how the systems work together. I decided I'd figure it out as I went and just assigned jobs without understanding how they worked. As a result, my first few fights were utter nightmares (I have a black mage ... with no spells?! A lancer ... without a spear?!), and I was one-shotted by a fucking cat (Cait Sith with Aero). But after I figured out the game's systems, and that in the early battles you could spam Brave (L button for shortcut btw), and just wail on guys to end the fight, it became more manageable.

That slight hiccup is the fault of the demo trying to get you to experiment with a bunch of things all at once. I imagine the full game will be quite a bit more graceful in the introduction of new concepts. Once I got the hang of it, I don't think I've had this much fun simply grinding in a JRPG in ... I dunno, a decade or so? I'm guessing that the quest system will be less rote as well, and that's good. Because the demo's MMO-style of drop quests could get old prettttty quickly.

It's really off to a great start. I just hope the full game can keep pace with my excitement of the demo. On the 8-4 Play podcast this week, one of the guys said something that struck true with me as I played the demo. It's a game made by people at Square-Enix who fondly remember the company's heritage, and wanted to make a game in that vein but in modern times. And speaking as someone whose favorite video game company has become my least favorite over the past 13 years, I will play that game.------------------TIPS: If you're starting the Bravely Default demo, let me offer some quick pointers to avoid frustration.

* If you want to use a spellcaster, make sure you set aside 100G at the start to buy a magic scroll for that character. Like early Final Fantasies, spells are purchased. So if you blew all your money on equipment (like I did), better go grind out 100G, and make that spellcaster a Freelancer or something.

* Whatever jobs you end up assigning, make sure your characters have proper equipment. Each job comes with equipment affinities, so when you're shopping, pay attention to the letters that appear in the top-left corner of your characters' portraits. S is the best, A is second-best and so on.

* Far from home and need to rest at an Inn? A quasi-hidden feature of the game is that you can turn random encounters completely OFF in the game's options under difficulty. No penalty for this, that I know of.

* Having trouble early in the game? Keep using Brave. This gives you extra turns (up to 4). So you can feasibly strike 16 times total with all 4 characters before the enemy even get a word in, finishing the fight easily. But ... if you can't finish the job, you'll have to sit there for 4 turns and take your hits, so keep that in mind.

I liked FFVIII a lot. I played it when it first came out for the PC, and I attempted to get back into it over the last few years. The Draw system is still annoying, and I don't like having to Junction magic that I'd like to use to my characters' stats to make them more powerful, but the story is enjoyable and I like Squall's character development. Rinoa is a great character, too.

I played FFIX after I bought a PS2 in 2000. It's my favorite Final Fantasy game, and I can't wait to play it again.

One of my favorite things about FFVIII was the card game, I discovered that you can play head to head online with a flash remake of sorts!

Finished playing Asura's Wrath, and in doing that managed to cough up the money to buy the part that has the true ending which seems unnecessary. Still the game does have a very unique feel to it somewhat from a gameplay perspective.

I recently beat the main storylines in Skyrim and Oblivion. These games are ridiculously immersive!!! I'd love to go around reading all of the books in the games. I guess I like to behave in-game the same the way I do in real life...（´∀｀ ）

I have been trying to find a way to get a play through in the berserk games for both DC and PS2. There is a youtube video called sword of the berserk guts rage that is about 2 hours. Has anyone seen it?

^Think it took me slightly longer but I bet you could beat it in 2 hours cause it was quite a small/easy game as far as I remember, so the vid is probably solid. The only stage I had a bit of trouble with was the Zodd fight.

I believe there should be one for the PS2 game too, but I think its the long japanese title for it. And I dont think it was that much longer tbh.

Anyway, though its far from a masterpiece, if you have the means, I´d actually suggest at least playing the part where you get the Berserker armour. I always get such a kick reading this part of the manga and since there arent any other Berserk game that depicts this scene I really merged myself into the game here, for instance I recall that even if you dont press any move button he keeps jumping about like a rabid dog Like I said, not ideal by far but its just cool to be able to play this part.

Btw both games got a pretty good OST, if you´re into Hirasawa that is.

I have been trying to find a way to get a play through in the berserk games for both DC and PS2. There is a youtube video called sword of the berserk guts rage that is about 2 hours. Has anyone seen it?

Not all of the music from the DC game's OST is by Hirasawa, and only Sign (and Sign-2) are from him in the PS2 game.

Ah right, that figures, since theres not that many tracks featuring his vocals anyway. Still though, just as atmospheric if you ask me. Used to use them both as background music when reading the later arcs of the manga.

On an unrelated note, even though I´ve always wanted to I´ve never played the Assassins Creed games, and with the pirate based one just about having been released (over here anyway), I just couldnt resist anymore.And I know it sounds farfetched but since I have this fixation about always starting from the beginning I borrowed the first two from a pal, and I gotta say its a lot of mixed emotions thus far.The first one had the strong story with a lot of mystery and what seemed like potentially great depth, but on the other hand very undeveloped/repetitive gameplay (gotta cut it some slack though since its the first in the series AND was one of the first 360 games as far as I remember).And the second seems to be the complete opposite, great and pretty well-developed gameplay but a very not-mysterious plot with a very shallow-ish style of story telling, I mean c'mon! That execution scene of Ezio´s father and brothers felt like a total joke. So a bit of a disappointment in that regard. But what takes the cake here is the face-palm inducing choice of going with american with Italian accent, sadly its just totally killing it for me all the time. Im trying really hard to ignore it though.Im guessing Im about 25-50% through it, seems like you dont get to get out of the Animus at all unlike the first game, into the "present" where the more actually intriguing story seems to take place imo. To be juggling two characters in different ages was kinda the charm for me Hope that´ll change. Anyway, the rest of the sequels looks very promising so Im not exactly worried at this point.

Btw Ive heard there are comics too, any of you guys know if theres anything worth checking out?

On an unrelated note, even though I´ve always wanted to I´ve never played the Assassins Creed games, and with the pirate based one just about having been released (over here anyway), I just couldnt resist anymore.And I know it sounds farfetched but since I have this fixation about always starting from the beginning I borrowed the first two from a pal, and I gotta say its a lot of mixed emotions thus far.The first one had the strong story with a lot of mystery and what seemed like potentially great depth, but on the other hand very undeveloped/repetitive gameplay (gotta cut it some slack though since its the first in the series AND was one of the first 360 games as far as I remember).And the second seems to be the complete opposite, great and pretty well-developed gameplay but a very not-mysterious plot with a very shallow-ish style of story telling, I mean c'mon! That execution scene of Ezio´s father and brothers felt like a total joke. So a bit of a disappointment in that regard. But what takes the cake here is the face-palm inducing choice of going with american with Italian accent, sadly its just totally killing it for me all the time. Im trying really hard to ignore it though.Im guessing Im about 25-50% through it, seems like you dont get to get out of the Animus at all unlike the first game, into the "present" where the more actually intriguing story seems to take place imo. To be juggling two characters in different ages was kinda the charm for me Hope that´ll change. Anyway, the rest of the sequels looks very promising so Im not exactly worried at this point.

Btw Ive heard there are comics too, any of you guys know if theres anything worth checking out?

Don't know about the comics, but what I'll say is that to me the peak of the series was reached with Ezio's arc (AC2, Brotherhood, and Revelations). I was disappointed by AC3 and I haven't heard too many good things about Black Flag.

Don't know about the comics, but what I'll say is that to me the peak of the series was reached with Ezio's arc (AC2, Brotherhood, and Revelations). I was disappointed by AC3 and I haven't heard too many good things about Black Flag.

Hm that sounds…Both good and bad I guess. Wasn’t sure I was gonna play Brotherhood and Revelations (since I wanted the 3rd and Black Flag ASAP) but now I definitely will. Thanks man.

Since last playing session I thought about it, and evidently they´ve focused A LOT on historical figures/events/places/constructions etc. so I guess they just want to get their facts straight (eventhough some parts are obviously spectulation/exaggeration/bullshit) and elaborate as much as possible just to make the setting/story seem as authetic as possible to give the feeling that the Animus is the real deal, gotta admit its clever.

Anyway I tend to do this with all games nowadays, I focus too much on the story and miss out a lot on the actual gaming part, last session I discovered a lot more fun stuff to do and kinda "got lost" in the gameplay. It was a nice feeling to get that back. Im not gaming nearly enough as I should nowadays, kinda sad, almost feels like Im hurrying through a game whenever I do take the time, thats just wrong, man...

Trying to get the future wife into gaming utilizing the Wii and it's relatively cheap fair, plus the casual friendly shit like the dancing and fitness crap. I picked up Wii Sports, best selling game ever (and rudimentary shit), and Umbrella Chronicles. For the record, she has beaten plants versus zombies and is a natural at puzzle games like Tetris and those Jewel matching games I hate.

In all around sad news, a few weeks ago my new D3 HC barb literally died on the way to Inferno Diablo because I got careless (jumped into a group of multiple elite packs and that one dangerous key holder at once on a choppy computer with a questionable CPU and couldn't escape as a result: just dumb). He was a behemoth: 120K HP, 20K damage, 70% on all resists, and even more armor. I'll never be able to make as powerful a tank after the AH closes (though I have a million gold to use to hoard for a future barb, but I haven't even had the heart to look). Anyway, I only log on to the game to sell my and my dad's stuff until the auction house closes (he's giving me half the profits as he's too busy playing PoE to care =). Anyway, I don't even know if I'll have the heart to play RoS. A little bit of me died with that hatrdcore guy.

Well, if it's of any consolation, those stats would have probably been worthless anyway when the subsequent expansion packs increase max stats by multiple orders of magnitude.

Yeah, but the flipside is that's why I wanted to wrap up HC Inferno before the expansion. Still can't believe I blew it. On the bright side, I did avenge my last character against Azmodan before getting wiped out in similarly stupid fashion. Of course, riding high from that probably contributed to my haste and recklessness. If I ever play a HC guy again, maybe I'll actually try to not make them not too strong, eliminating the feeling of invincibility that can so easily get you killed and forcing me to be careful. Very Musashi-like. =)

Just started up Castlevania Lords of Shadow and so far it's actually very good, Lords of Shadow 2 will be out soon so I am going through this to see where the story will conclude from there.

The first one was pretty good for the most part. Make sure you play the DLC too as it has some critical information that connects the 2 games. And if you feel up to it you can play Mirror of Fate which takes place between 1 and 2. It had some cool moments and is really short and easy.

I plan on buying Lords Of Shadow 2 soon, even though I'm a little disappointed at what I've seen and heard from the game so far. But then again I'm not expecting greatness. It's a very mediocre series.

I plan on buying Lords Of Shadow 2 soon, even though I'm a little disappointed at what I've seen and heard from the game so far. But then again I'm not expecting greatness. It's a very mediocre series.

Wait, you say the first game is pretty good, tell the guy to buy the DLCs, but end up saying the series is mediocre? It doesn't makes sense... Anyway, for what it's worth, I was quite disappointed with the first LoS. It has good stuff in it, but when you take it as a whole, "mediocre" is indeed what I'd call it. And the DLCs... Blargh.

Anyway, I'm currently continuing my ancient run of BioShock that I'd never bothered finishing before starting BioShock Infinite.